


How Deep is Your Love?

by pennysparkle



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Manipulation, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5009032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparkle/pseuds/pennysparkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some sacrifices were big and weighty, some small and barely noticed. Some led to greater things, and others just crashed and burned—he'd gotten used to each and every kind. But this one in particular he'd been grappling with for months now, because it felt all wrong. He couldn't just stomach the idea of pretending that there was nothing between he and Adachi. It was a strain, but furthermore, it made him feel guilty. Surely it was a bad idea to keep this secret from everyone, including his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Deep is Your Love?

**Author's Note:**

> For [soujitastic](http://soujitastic.tumblr.com)!

There would always be sacrifices you had to make in life; Souji knew this. He wasn't a stranger to sacrifices, and hadn't been for a long,  _long_ time. Give up free time in order to study, which pleased his parents. Give up a sense of home in order to live in places that might be considered exciting by some. Give up his clinging to loneliness in order to have friends that just might leave him someday.

Some sacrifices were big and weighty, some small and barely noticed. Some led to greater things, and others just crashed and burned—he'd gotten used to each and every kind. But this one in particular he'd been grappling with for months now, because it felt all wrong. He couldn't just stomach the idea of pretending that there was nothing between he and Adachi. It was a strain, but furthermore, it made him feel  _guilty_. Surely it was a bad idea to keep this secret from everyone, including his friends.

He didn't like it. But it was a sacrifice he had to make in order to be with Adachi, so instead of allowing them to fall apart in the light of day, he allowed them to be confined to Adachi's apartment instead or, on unusual occasions when both Nanako and Dojima were unexpected at home, Souji's bedroom.

Never the living room, though. That was an untouched space, one that was too risky for them to be in, and yet after dinner and a few beers one night with the house to themselves, Adachi seemed to be feeling bold and touchy despite their current location.

It started with his hand resting on Souji's thigh, occasionally squeezing—innocent enough. Then he'd drag his fingertips up and down to make Souji squirm and shift in place. But by the time one show had ended and the news had begun, those touches were becoming more insistent, Adachi's eagerness getting stronger with boredom and tipsiness. It would have to end before things got too heavy.

"Adachi-san... maybe it would be better to go up to my room," Souji murmured.

"Ehhh...? But I'm comfortable here," he said, going back to squeezing Souji's thigh instead of creeping up the inside of it.

Souji went quiet in compliance, hoping that he'd gotten the point, or that he'd at least change his mind when he decided he wanted more. At least for now, his touch didn't move any higher or become any more insistent, and though his lips came to press idly against Souji's shoulder, that was a small enough gesture that could be blamed on tiredness if someone were to walk in.

Only then they moved upward, touching his neck, making him hold his breath as if it would keep him from reacting too much. Then they were urgent at his mouth, and even if Souji tried to press at Adachi's shoulder to keep him at bay, or to rattle some sense into him, he was soon pushed back into the couch anyway, Adachi heavy over top of him. His lips were sloppy and uncoordinated, overwhelming Souji into bending to his will.

He allowed it. He  _liked_ it. The idea of Adachi wanting him this badly satisfied the greater half of himself, enough to satiate his paranoia. It was lucky, too, because the kisses placed upon his lips were only the start of it, followed by hands groping at him, pushing his thighs apart so that Adachi could settle between. And there was the taste of beer on his lips, sour and a little bit unpleasant—but Souji always delighted in taking this much from him. An inch he could receive was better than a mile he'd only ever dream about. He clung to that ideal.

Soon his shirt was pushed up, Adachi sitting on his hips with his fingers working at his belt clumsily, and Souji reached out to help. Only there was the earth-shattering sound of the front door coming unlocked and sliding open as if in slow motion. But neither of them moved. They were paralyzed, Souji in fear and Adachi most likely in some drunken stupor.

Dojima stepped into view. At first, he must have thought nothing strange was going on (aside from the fact that Adachi was in his home at all), and then he came closer, and the confused look on his face became something feral and furious all at once.

"H-hey, it's not what it looks like, sir!" Adachi promised, rising up quickly. His pants fell down around his ankles abruptly; it seemed he'd had success with getting his belt undone after all.

"Adachi," Dojima growled, and it was not the low warning he often gave. This was a sound that even frightened Souji, and he hurriedly sat up, his shirt falling down to rest around his waist again for some modicum of privacy, even though Dojima had already seen.

"Sir, really, we were just—"

"Get  _out_. Adachi, you'd better get out right  _now_ , I swear," he spat, already advancing on him. Perhaps it would have been comical at any other time, with Adachi's pants on the ground, but Souji felt like it was straight out of a nightmare.

"Uncle, please, he didn't do anything!" he said, on some kind of terrified autopilot.

Dojima's gaze turned to him instead, which gave Adachi enough time to pull his pants up and scuttle away without even taking his phone. Souji swallowed nervously as the front door slammed shut, and he found himself alone with Dojima, huffing and puffing like some kind of beast in the middle of the living room.

"Did he hurt you?" was the first thing out of his mouth—caring, but garbled by his anger.

"He didn't do anything to me, uncle," said Souji. Even now, he had to keep it a secret. And this was the worst possible outcome after all; if Dojima didn't believe him, if he wanted them apart, then it may as well have been game over.

"I'm going to  _kill_  him. Wait here," Dojima said, whirling around and stomping toward the front door hard enough to rattle the dishes in the cabinet.

"No! Nothing happened! It was just a joke! He was drunk," said Souji, tossing out anything he could think of, anything that might change his mind.

At least it made him hesitate before he got to the door. "He didn't touch you?" he asked reluctantly.

"No. Not at all," Souji said, pleading with him to see things his way, to not overreact.  _Please don't ruin this for me_.  _It's not all I have, but I want it so_ badly.

Dojima sighed, shoulders slumping even more tiredly than they usually did. "I'm still going to have a talk with him at work tomorrow. It might be better if you two spent a little less time together. There's got to be boundaries."

Souji nodded, even though he was reluctant. He couldn't think of anything  _worse_ than spending less time with Adachi.

But the choice was made for him, in the end. Dojima took Adachi's phone the next morning to deliver to him at work, which left Souji without an excuse to see him.

That wasn't the worst part of it, though; it was that no matter how many times Souji tried to call or text after that, he refused to answer. Maybe he was still scared. Maybe he was angry. Maybe he was thoroughly spooked off of Souji. And it hurt. Souji felt lonely without him, like a piece had been ripped from within him, and when he went to put it back in place, it didn't want to fit properly.

In the end, it came down to him sitting on the doorstep of Adachi's apartment after school a week later, waiting for him to get back home. The act itself seemed pitiful, because he was sure that he was supposed to be getting some kind of point here. He just couldn't accept it. He refused to believe that Adachi truly wanted nothing to do with him anymore, so he'd resigned himself to the cold, hard concrete.

After what felt like hours, footsteps finally began to ascend slowly toward him, a hunched shuffle that Souji could recognize from a mile away. He didn't look up as he walked, which Souji supposed he should have been glad for, because Adachi didn't realize he was sitting there until he was already standing in front of him.

"Hi," Souji said quietly.

Adachi sneered. "What are you doing here?"

The harsh greeting wasn't quite surprising, but it did put a pang of hurt in Souji's heart that he had to set aside for the time being. He could let it tear him up later. "You wouldn't answer any of my calls."

"So? You should have gotten the message, right? I don't want to hang around with you anymore." He said it so succinctly, not even looking at Souji, and that brought a stinging block to his throat.

He hated knowing how vulnerable this made him. He hated the thought that Adachi could just leave him like this and think nothing of it, like it didn't squeeze and claw at Souji's heart each night for the past week, lying in bed wondering if he even had a chance anymore.

"Please... I told him that we weren't doing anything," he swore, with all the sincerity he could muster.

"Yeah? Well he still chewed me out at work and said if he saw me near you like that again, he'd put me behind bars himself. So maybe you should stop worrying so much about what  _you_ want and worry about how it'd affect  _me_."

"But we can try harder, Adachi-san! We can make it work. We'll just have to be more secret about it..."

"How much more secret do you think we can  _get_? Do you want to have to sneak in here under the cover of night like out of an action movie? Because it's not going to work like that, Souji-kun. Stop being stubborn and recognize a bad idea when you see one!"

Souji wilted, his head hitting his chest as he swallowed hard. It wasn't fair. How was it right for him to be so happy when he was with Adachi, and so sad when he wasn't? Getting jerked around like this was too painful to keep up, but he couldn't let it go.

"Please... I really want to be with you, Adachi-san..." he whispered miserably.

"No. No way! You're being too selfish right now, you brat!"

"There has to be something!" Souji said, his voice a frustrated shout. He hoped he hadn't disturbed the neighbors; this was already enough of a scene, and if Dojima found out he was here, then there really  _wouldn't_ be any further chances for them.

"Yeah? Something? Hm..." Adachi tapped a fingertip mockingly against his chin. "Oh! How about you tell Dojima-san that it was all  _your_ fault. Tell him about how you tried to seduce me and how I held back, how about  _that_? How about you tell him that you wanted to spread your legs for me and you begged me to fuck you but I wouldn't do it? What do you think he'd say  _then_?"

Souji stared down at the dark ground beneath his folded legs. "Why?"

"Tell him! I want to know what he'd say when he finds out that you're just  _desperate_ for the attention of older guys! Do you think he'd kick you out right then and there?"

Even for Adachi, this was too much. His face was twisted, a wolf's snarl as he glared down at Souji, and he felt some deep part of himself crumble. Was this what Adachi thought of him? Did he only ever think that Souji wanted to be with him because of something like that? He hadn't meant to fall in love... he'd known it was wrong, and that it would be hard, but didn't that make it all the more worth it?

Only Adachi didn't seem to think so. Time and time again, he wanted to give up when Souji begged him to keep pushing, or called him an idiot for wanting to continue on. He tried to comfort himself by believing that if Adachi really didn't want to be with him, he'd just drop him... but if everything came down to a problem that could be fixed, then why  _shouldn't_ it be? It just didn't make any sense.

"C'mon! Answer me!" Adachi demanded.

Souji stared up at him, and he could feel the uncomfortable pull of a frown on his face. "We can work this out, Adachi-san... I know it! It doesn't have to be like that!"

"Nah. I told you the only way I'm willing to be with you. So are you going to do it?" Adachi asked, staring hard down at him. There was nothing but dead seriousness on his face, and Souji wondered if he'd really force him to do this, or how he'd  _know_. If he didn't have any way to do so, then Souji could just lie to him—not that he particularly enjoyed the idea.

"If that's the only way," he said, bowing his head toward the ground so that the plot on his face couldn't be caught.

"Good. Then call me before you walk in the door at home. Let me hear you say it to him, Souji-kun," Adachi said, and Souji's frown deepened to know that Adachi  _did_ have a plan for this. "Get out of here now... you don't want him to find out you were here, do you?"

Souji shook his head as he stood, and he ran down the stairs so quickly he was afraid more than once that he might fall. But soon he slowed. And slowed more. Every step toward home made him feel like a dead man walking, and when he got there, he hesitated by the front door. Could he do it? Was it worth it? This was the only family he had, and the thought of Dojima never thinking well of him again was too painful.

But the thought of losing Adachi was hard, too. Souji took a calming breath that felt useless all the same and pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open and scrolling over Adachi's name. He realized his hands were shaking and his feet were frozen in place, and it terrified him halfway out of his skin when the front door suddenly opened, Dojima silhouetted within.

All he could do was stare back at him, knowing that this might be the last time Dojima looked at him with any kind of sympathy. His thumb hovered over the call button. In the darkness as their eyes remained on each other, he wondered how badly he had to break one thing in order to fix another.

"Are you coming inside or not?" Dojima asked, seemingly amused by his indecision.

Souji's thumb still hovered, but it was now or never. He tucked the phone behind himself and stepped forward, into the light of the house, terrified.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!](http://bunansa.tumblr.com)


End file.
